Shooting Victoria

Here's a fun fact many Americans probably don't know--Queen Victoria was the victim of eight assassination attempts, by seven different men (one of them tried twice). Paul Thomas Murphy, in his book Shooting Victoria: Madness, Mayhem, and the Rebirth of the British Monarchy, chronicles those attempts, as well as giving an overview of Victoria's reign, and most especially, the development of the laws surrounding the attempts.

Victoria, of course, is one of the most impactful monarchs of the last few hundred years, essentially the grandmother of Europe. She ruled for 64 years. But it's interesting to note that early in her reign she was something of a controversial figure, and not universally loved as she was in her later years, when she was an icon. The first attempt to kill her came in 1840, at the hands of Edward Oxford, a disturbed young man who fired a pistol in her general direction as she rode in a carriage with her husband, Prince Albert.

Oxford's gun may or may not have been loaded, which was a contention at his trial. He was clearly, by our standards, insane, and a convoluted verdict led to him being imprisoned at Bethlem, the insane asylum that stood for nearly a millennium and gave us the word "bedlam."

It can be said that all seven of Victoria's assailants had some degree of insanity. A spate of the them followed Oxford's attempt, as the men thought that by making an attempt they would get a lifetime of care by the state. Those who attempted were John Francis (he would try twice, as he escaped the first time and Victoria was used as bait to catch him after a second try), John Bean, a disfigured dwarf, and William Hamilton may have taken a shot at her in 1849, all with this in mind: "She was now certain that the law as it stood would only encourage more attacks. Any desperate and overambitious boy in the kingdom might now attain with a cheap pistol an instant worldwide notoriety granted by the elevated charge of High Treason."

What developed over these attempts were changes in the law and how insanity was judged. To be found not guilty by virtue of insanity was a Catch-22: one could be incarcerated at the Queen's pleasure, which meant forever. To be found guilty of "annoying" the queen, that is firing a gun at her with no bullets, could mean a seven-year term of hard labor and a flogging.

Later attempts included Robert Pate's, the only man who actually harmed the queen, as he struck her on the head with his cane:  "Of the many attacks upon her, the Queen until the end of her life considered this one the meanest and most ignoble--'far worse,' she wrote 'than an attempt to shoot which, wicked as it is, is at least more comprehensible and more courageous.' Unlike her previous assailants, Pate had succeeded in breaking through the invisible barrier between Queen and subject, and in actually hurting her. He shook her until-now unshakeable trust in the public."

After Albert's death in 1861, Victoria didn't go out in public as much, so it was several years before the next attempt, by Arthur O'Connor, who though insane, was the only one who had a somewhat political motive--he did it for Ireland. He managed to get inside the gates of the palace, and perhaps came the closest of actually killing her. Her manservant, John Brown, tackled him. "Of all of the attempts upon her, O'Connor's--violating the security of her home as well as her personal space--was the one that frightened her the most. Her worst fears about Fenians, the Irish, and the growing dangers that lurked in the metropolis were all confirmed in the puny boy."

The last attempt came in 1882, by Roderick Maclean, who fancied himself a poet. He claimed he was not trying to hurt the queen, but it was found that his gun was loaded, and had a trajectory that could have hit her.

None of the seven assailants were executed. Some lived the rest of their lives in confinement, while a few others were exiled to Australia, where they married and led somewhat productive lives. Murphy does add a postscript about an attempt that was foiled when some Irish revolutionaries contemplated blowing up Westminster Abbey during Victoria's golden jubilee, which could have taken out the entire royal family.

Murphy's book is enlightening but often strays, as he gets into detail about other sensational crimes of the period and other, successful assassinations, such as of James Garfield in the U.S. Also, and by no fault of his own, the book has a kind of repetition to it, as each attempt is followed by the trial, and all the assailants kind of blend into one. His descriptions of Victoria's relationships with her prime ministers--those she liked, such as Robert Peel and Benjamin Disraeli, and those she didn't, like Lord Palmerston and William Gladstone--are ably etched.

Though Victoria's attackers were all somewhat insane, the violence of them prefigured the modern age, when shortly after her death an assassination would launch the world into war, and to the state we're in now, when all world leaders must have vigilant and air-tight security. Of course, she would endure, dying in 1901 at 82, the longest serving monarch in British history.